I have been meaning to write about this for a while, but this Salon article is so good there is no point in restating it. To summarize:

First term Virginia Senator Jim Webb is engaged in what can only be characterized as a politically toxic but noble agenda: fundamental reform of our criminal justice system. From Senator’s Webb’s own web site:

• With 5% of the world’s population, our country now houses 25% of the world’s reported prisoners.
• Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980.
• Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.
• Approximately 1 million gang members reside in the U.S., many of them foreign-based; and Mexican cartels operate in 230+ communities across the country.
• Post-incarceration re-entry programs are haphazard and often nonexistent, undermining public safety and making it extremely difficult for ex-offenders to become full, contributing members of society.

At least the U.S. is number one at something…

This issue is something of a sacred cow to me because I believe that a fundamentally important measure of a civilization’s worth is in how it treats its wretched. It’s essentially a riff on Abraham Lincoln’s sentiment:

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

Again from Jim’s Webb’s policy statement:

America’s criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation’s prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.

We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration.

We, invoking the voice of our national identity, can state uneqivocally that we are powerful but just. We can demonstrate as a matter of policy that we will always take the high road, especially when that way is hard, and we can again lead the nations of the world by example.

While this attitude extends far beyond criminal justice reform, for starters think of this post the next time some reference to prison rape comes up on your favorite sitcom or in casual conversation. You know what I mean. “Don’t bend over for the soap” is an axiom, and pop culture references such as “The trick is: kick someone’s ass the first day, or become someone’s bitch,” (á la Office Space) abound.

Imagine for a moment the genuine, pure swelling of pride you might feel from being a member of a huge, powerful and principled nation. Two out of three sucks, and Senator Webb is doing something about that, at tremendous expense to his political capital.